


Gold is the Weakest Metal

by fallintosanity (yopumpkinhead)



Series: A Bridge Once Broken [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brotherhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/fallintosanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor tries to cope with the aftermath of the Infinity War, and what Loki means to Asgard - and to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold is the Weakest Metal

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all need to ~~blame~~ thank the lovely [Demeter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeter) for this. It's entirely her fault. Tuesday morning, this story didn't exist. Tuesday afternoon, I read a comment she made. Tuesday night, this story appeared on my monitor. So now I give it to you. :)

In the weeks after Thanos’s defeat, Thor thought about gold.

It was beautiful, and precious.

It made everything shine bright, glorious, promising.

It was weak.

Loki had always called him the golden prince, teasing, and Thor had always teased him back that his metal of choice was silver. It was Loki who wore gold.

Now Thor wondered whether Loki chose to wear gold because he believed he lacked it in himself.

*             *             *

The mortals went home first, filing through the round arch of the new Bifrost. They had offered to stay, to help, but Thor would not let them. They had friends waiting to know whether they must fear what could come from the sky.

Thor desperately wished he could go with them, could lose himself in Jane’s kindness, could escape the ruins of his city and his memories.

But Asgard needed its prince.

*             *             *

He remembered Phil Son of Coul.

How the man had been quiet, and still, so that you didn’t notice him unless he wanted you to. How he’d seemed so soft on the outside, like a hard breeze might knock him over.

How he’d stared down gods unflinching.

Steel, Thor thought. Coulson looked like gold, soft and weak, but it was nothing more than gilding. Coulson was steel through and through.

Thor wondered what lay at his own core.

*             *             *

It was more than a week after the end of the war, after the new Bifrost carried the mortals back to Earth and the elves back to Alfheim, before Thor saw Sif.

It was a chance meeting only, crossing paths in a hallway. Sif stared at him for a long moment, then, before Thor could find the words he wanted to say, she snapped into a bow, cold and formal, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

So Thor said nothing, and kept walking.

*             *             *

He didn’t speak to Odin.

The Allfather kept himself busy, honoring lesser war heroes, organizing cleanup and repairs, attending funerals for nobles of his court. Thor had managed to ensure, before everyone left, that Odin took upon himself the blame for those who had died while Loki saved the universe. He was surprised when he realized he was expecting Odin to take the credit for Loki’s heroism, too.

He was more surprised when Odin didn’t.

*             *             *

Every day, Thor went to the end of the Bifrost and asked Heimdall if Loki was well. He had learned early on that Heimdall would answer no other questions, no matter how Thor begged.

Every day, Heimdall answered _yes_.

It terrified Thor to think that he would not find out that something had happened, that the answer had changed, until he asked Heimdall.

So every day he asked. 

*             *             *

He knew the Warriors Three were avoiding him.

Hogun loved Sif as Sif  had once loved Thor, and he would not forget, nor forgive, that Thor did not condemn Loki for taking their minds. Even, or especially, since Loki had done it to save their lives for Thor’s sake.

Fandral and Volstagg, caught between Hogun and Sif on one side and Thor on the other, still suffering from their own enslavement, could not take sides. Thor found out from Ullr, almost two weeks after the war, that they had left for Fandral’s family’s estate in Vanaheim, and did not plan to return.

Thor didn’t blame them.

*             *             *

Frigga spent her time tending to the common folk who had suffered the most during the war. She made sure the healers saw to everyone who needed them. She sent servants to pass out food from the palace’s stores, to those whose homes had been lost. She called together the women and the children of Asgard, who mourned their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons, and gave them work to do, so they could contribute to their realm as their loved ones had.

Thor knew she cried herself to sleep every night.

She played the dutiful queen in public, but in private, she was cold and distant to Odin. She admitted to Thor that she shouldn’t be, that the Allfather needed someone on whom to lean, especially now.

But Odin had sent her son to the void.

*             *             *

Thor remembered the way Loki had said _I understand._

Loki was like Coulson, steel through and through. He wore gold because that’s what Asgard expected, that’s what Asgard wanted. But Loki had no gold to offer.

Only steel.

*             *             *

More than a month after the war, Thor found Odin standing on a high balcony, looking out over the city in the way that meant he was seeing not through the eye he had left, but the one he’d lost.

Thor came to stand beside him, and it was several minutes before he had the courage to ask, _how could you?_

It was several minutes more before Odin answered, _how could I not?_

Because if he hadn’t, there wouldn’t be a universe for Loki to be alive in now.

*             *             *

Gold, Thor thought.

Loki had been right. Thor was gold, outside and inside, shining and precious and loved, but ultimately weak.

Because he could never make that choice.

Would never sacrifice his brother, even if it meant the universe would burn.


End file.
